


Neither Here Nor There

by colorfulCheshire



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demon!Dave, Demonstuck, M/M, halfdemon!Karkat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorfulCheshire/pseuds/colorfulCheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Please! Someone, anyone, save me! Please, I’ll do anything, I just want to <em>live!</em>’</p><p>‘Sounds like a good deal to me,’ says a voice entirely unlike the demon who’s been after you for a week. ‘Hold up a sec, sweetcheeks; I’ve got this covered.’ </p><p>----</p><p>Karkat had feared things would come to this when he had first noticed the horns developing from his skull at age thirteen.  His surprisingly calm mother had explained to him that he could never tell anyone under any circumstances, a rule that he followed without question while growing up in his small, incredibly religious southern community, for fear of his life.  He only had one more semester until he could graduate early and move away with his mother to attend college somewhere much safer.  They had it all planned out.</p><p>And then she showed up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write something, and even though I have another private AU I need to work on with these two nerds, this is what I wanted to write when I sat staring at a blank page. 
> 
> The desire to write Demonstuck and the mental processes involving demons here were heavily inspired by Askerian's [Midnight on the Demon Patrol](http://archiveofourown.org/works/625941) because I just really love how it portrays interaction with demon's as far as ethereal beings go.

The night is clear, stars shining brightly against the black void of space, but with the new moon a dark blotch in the sky, it’s nearly impossible to see the road as well as you need to with these shitty headlights. They’re probably suited for sixty at most on a good night, and right now, you’re flooring it at a hundred, hunched over the steering wheel to keep your eyes on the road and away from the temptation of the mirrors. At this speed, you’re a little scared to even blink, but you’re more scared of what will happen if you slow down.

You shouldn’t have waited so long to leave the house. Maybe then, you could have jumped the fence while Terezi’s mom was still home and taken her new Kia. You’ve driven it enough times back from a party with Terezi, too drunk to drive herself, to be comfortable with the way it drives, and you know for a fact that those headlights could handle these speeds without much danger. You’d probably be able to push it thirty miles faster, too, and you’d be in the next town by now and then no one could find you and you’d be safe, relatively speaking at least.

But you didn’t leave early. You waited at home like the concerned son you were after your phone rang once with a call from your mom and you couldn’t get an answer when you tried to return the call multiple times to see what was up. You had held a bad feeling in your gut since first waking up in the morning, that feeling only growing stronger when your mother left you home alone to run a few errands. When she took longer than normal to get home and didn’t check in save for that single ring, you were left only with a sense of dread and started packing your backpack without knowing why, checking your phone every five minutes with the slim hope that she would call back and everything would be okay. It only took half an hour from that single ring and your dread grew into a sudden panic and you _knew_ that something was terribly wrong. While it’s likely a part of the whole reason you’re in this mess, not that you had any choice, you can’t say that you’ve ever hated your sixth sense of just _knowing_ when shit was about to hit the whirling device.

Like right now – you’re hit with a strong wave of sudden anxiety and you panic about how long you’ve been staring at the same stretch of road and how they could have caught up and you’re so _stupid_ for not checking earlier. You ease off the gas quickly and lean back to glance frantically at both of mirrors, back to the road, and once more at the mirrors before leaning back over the wheel again to focus on driving. You’re okay for now, so what was that feeling abou- the gas pedal does nothing and you slam your foot down only to hear the awful empty rattling of the engine and no, no, no, _no_ , this _can’t be fucking happening right now_.

Hands shaking against their knuckle-white grip on the steering wheel, you push yourself back to look down at the nearly non-existent glow of the dashboard's lights. The faint glow of the needle is resting solidly on the little peg beneath the ominous faint red line marked ‘E’. You watch in growing, silent horror as the speedometer’s needle travels slowly backwards from one-hundred to ninety to eighty, glancing frantically back to the road as it travels, stomping harshly against the gas in a desperate, futile attempt to keep the needle and truck from slowing.

“You’ve _got_ to be _fucking shitting me_!!!” you scream at the cracked windshield, throat painfully dry and thick as the reality of your situation sinks in – not the whole running from death thing, but the whole _vehicle running out of gas while running from death thing_. You’ve got to be in a horror movie, or a dream . . . but if it’s not a dream, you can’t afford to stand still. They’ll catch up in a matter of minutes and then you’ll be dead. Well, you’ll be beaten by people you loved, tortured, and then dead. Oh, and not to forget probably double dead once that bitch gets your soul suddenly freed from your body. Joy. This is _exactly_ how you wanted your young life to end, you remember telling yourself in the orphanage as a wee wide-eyed boy wishing upon stars. Great.

No. No no no _no_! _Fuck this_! You are not about to be roasted alive in front of the entire town, in front of your friends, neighbors, teachers. You _have_ to live! You’ve made it this far and you can’t just let seventeen years struggling through life for something better go down the fucking drain all because a psychotic egomaniacal demon bitch decided you’d look hot on her dinner plate (or tied up and soul-tortured??? You’re really not sure which because those weird dreams you know she’s responsible for are incredibly vague and surreal in all the worst ways). No, fuck you, you psychotic hell-bitch; this soul is not for sale.

Instead of waiting for the truck to slow to a halt, you hit the brakes and kill the engine without bothering to park the rust-fucker. Not like you need to worry about the junk’s condition seeing as A, you won’t be needing it again, and B, it’s not like the owner _isn’t_ part of a community that now wants to see you dowsed in holy water and burned at the stake. That second part kind of stings a little bit because you _know_ the owner and used to do yard work for them during the fall, so yeah, wow, thanks for that, it’s not like you had _feelings_ or something. However, you don’t have much time to contemplate exactly how bad all of this hurts and how you _do_ actually feel a pang of guilt for stealing and abusing their truck, so you just grab your backpack, jump the fuck _out_ of that truck, and lock the door before slamming it shut in the hopes that it will cause them to waste just a little more time trying to pry it open to see if you’re inside.

You stand at the edge of the road for a moment, glancing down both ends of the highway and mostly thankful to find darkness on either ends, before finally moving your gaze to your next destination, a thick wall of sugarcane standing sentry at the bottom of the shoulder. You’ve seen too many scary movies with your friends where scary shit either comes out of cornfields or drags unsuspecting teens into them, but at least corn crops have enough space to see the next three rows of plants. With sugarcane . . . well the boogey man and his entire army could be half a foot behind the outer limits of crops and you’d be none the wiser.

But what choice do you have? You can’t walk the road with half the town on your ass. Hell, a blanket of snakes has a better chance of survival out on these country roads than you do right now. At least people _pause_ to run over a snake _properly_. Everyone in town knows your black and grey checkered backpack from freshman year and you know they wouldn’t hesitate to run you over now; you don’t stand a chance on the road. So you have no choice. Pushing aside your fear of crop monsters, and reminding yourself that you’re getting a far worse feeling from the road back to town than from the field in front of you, you hop cautiously down the shoulder of the road and slip past the first layer of sugarcane as carefully as you can, hoping not to mark your entrance into the field and give an easy path to follow from the start.

It’s even darker amongst the towering sugarcane stalks, the sky a small blotch of stars only directly above you, but you resist the urge to use your flashlight you packed earlier for fear of giving away your presence to anyone in the area. It’s the dead of night, and even with the thickness and height of the crops, you’re sure the glow of a flashlight would attract the wary eyes of farmers on the look-out for vandals and other suspicious activity among their livelihood. So you step carefully, but quickly, over the ground still soft and a bit muddy from heavy rain the day before, moving diagonally towards the next town to get some distance from the road before attempting to stay parallel to it. The next town is probably over a three hour walk and you have no idea how long your pursuers plan on tracking you, but there’s nothing you can do but try to stay on path so you don’t get hopelessly lost. Time is of the essence so you have to move quickly.

This of course, is a lot easier said than done. With so few cars traveling this road, it’s hard to listen to where you’re supposed be keep parallel. You lose all sense of direction, you find, when surrounded by stalks upon stalks of crop in the dark of the night, crickets coming from all around now that you’re directly in their territory instead of listening from a paved out driveway or someone’s porch. Everything looks the same and sounds the same, and the only stars you can make out are too close to really follow with your limited vision from your measly height beneath towering sugarcane.

 _‘Karkles, we’re here, sugar~,’_ her voice filters into your mind in a twisted sing-song tone after maybe ten or fifteen minutes of scrambling through the field and you nearly stop mid-step before forcing yourself to keep going, focusing on the image of a thick, impenetrable wall around you, dark enough to keep prying eyes from finding you. _‘Aww,’_ she croons like icy ocean waves, _‘just because I can’t get a hit on where exactly ya at, doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re here, crabcakes. Ya might as whale give up an’ let me get this contract inked up with ya.’_

You bite your lip and focus harder on your barrier, speeding up but trying to keep quiet and not lose your way. You’re absolutely terrified, but adrenaline keeps you moving forward, and the thought of them catching you in a state of panic keeps you from freaking out and losing control completely. You need to stay calm if you want to have any chance of slipping past them unseen and making your escape to wherever it is you’ll end up. Hopefully, it won’t be back in town, burned in the church’s old parking lot.

Far behind you, but much closer than you would have hoped for, you hear wild shouts and jeers, and then, to your horror, a gun shot into the air. It’s followed immediately by another loud shout like a half-crazed cheer and you feel your bones ice over in terror. This is real, the town is trying to capture you, and they will kill you. There’s no home to return to and no one you can think to turn to without risking your life, and you see no way out of this, but you have to keep moving forward. You don’t know how you’ll live, but you _have to live_.

 _‘Found you~_ ’ the demon practically purrs into your head, voice all ill-will and possessiveness, and you realize that the gunshot was more intentional than a random shot from an over-excited hunter because you’ve dropped your barrier in your surprise, and suddenly those shouts aren’t so scattered and lost, and they’re moving fast and in your direction. _Fuck!!!_

You desperately build your barrier back up as you break out into a run at a different angle, hoping to throw them off, but your gut tells you it’s of little use. Your barrier is weak, and she’s close enough to probably track your movements even with it up, now that she’s gotten a whiff of your soul. You can feel her eyes in your chest even as you focus all of your mental effort into blocking her out as you sprint away from the jeering calls of people you’ve grown up around for most of your life.

Another gun fires behind you, closer now, and you hear the bullet tearing past sugarcane leaves, guns now pointed to kill and not up into the night sky merely to frighten you. Another one soon follows and it’s close enough to make you choke on a cry of fear. You know you’ve been heard when a wave of excited hooting swells from the crowd closing in on you, and it dawns on you that you’re being hunted exactly like a small animal, minus the dogs that would normally be around to flush you out from your hiding spot. You’ve been reduced to being _hunted_ like game by people who watched you graduate elementary school. You want to cry. You do.

 _‘Please! Someone, anyone, save me,’_ you call out, dropping your barrier to reach out for  _something_ now that the crowd is close enough to follow your footsteps. You’re fucked regardless of whether you keep it up or not, not that you have the ability to with the rising levels of panic making it hard to breath and focus. You feel like you’re choking on your own heart as you try to run, the cool night air chilling streaks of tears down your cheeks. _‘Please, I’ll do anything, I just want to_ live _!’_

 _‘Sounds like a good deal to me,_ ’ says a voice entirely unlike the demon who’s been after you for a week. _‘Hold up a sec, sweetcheeks; I’ve got this covered._ ’ While there’s still a dark tone of desire and hidden intent, something you’ve found to be common in demons, the tone is calm and passive, flowing around your thoughts and self without much push, as if it just happens to be passing by and doesn’t want to bother upheaving you from its path.

You feel this energy flowing around your _physical_ body now, and even in the dark, you notice slow-moving streams of what looks like dark sands moving in your peripheral and then in front of you. It weaves through the sugarcane in thick rivers without disturbing the plants at all, the multiple branches joining up now to gather into the forming shape of a person. In your mind, or maybe outside of it too, you hear the vines of energy click into place like cogs and springs meeting each other for the first time in a machine, and you have to skid to a halt to avoid hitting what is now a very solid-looking person. You stumble backwards when the form turns to look at you, red eyes glowing brightly in the night as a faint energy seems to radiate off its entire form, but providing no light to its features.

“Holy shit,” the demon says in that same smooth, passive tone, looking down to their hands and then at you with what seems to be an inquisitive tilt of the head. “I didn’t know you were a halfie, oh damn sweetcheeks, consider my half of the deal signed, sealed, and delivered. I am _all_ about that life.” From his words, you get the sense of longing hunger, like coming across your favorite holiday dish that you only get to enjoy once a year. It makes you wary, but the growing shouts and loud footsteps coming suddenly to a halt behind you remind you that you have much bigger worries right now.

There’s a tense silence as the crowd comes into view and someone turns a way-too-bright flashlight on you and you feel like a raccoon that’s been thrown into the middle of a dog pin during the brief moment it takes the pack to register what just happened before they attack, tearing the poor creature to bits of flesh, bones, and fur.

“H-he’s called another one!” someone finally shrieks from the crowd a bit nervously, causing you to look back over your shoulder at the summoned demon.

T-they can see him?! Demons aren’t supposed to be corporeal without a host to possess, but the way the lights are now focused on the new arrival, his silver-white hair shimmering in the rays and contrasting harshly with bright red irises on dark gray sclera, you know that the others can see him and that they know what he is. It’s hard not to with his thick horns curving out from beneath and back over the hood of his open jacket, or with the burning red-tinted skin marked with pale geometric lines up his torso and down his arms. If they didn’t _really_ believe in demons before, they certainly do now. You know you do.

 _‘What the SHELL did you DO, VANTAS?!’_ the demon after your ass screeches into your mind, her presence all cold tidal waves and snaring weeds around your terrified mind. You can feel her anger closing in on you, a giant squid squeezing the life out of you and drawing you close to its sharp beak.

And then the tentacles shrivel and wither away, the beak crumbling like old stone into dust and the demon shrieks in pain and rage.

 _‘Woah woah, so this is the halfie everyone says you’ve had your eyes on, M-Girl?’_   The river is back in your mind, flowing quick like rapids and pushing back at the other demon’s anger and keeping her touch from your soul. Behind you, there’s a too-warm hand on your shoulder and you’re shoved back behind the demon as he steps forward in front of you. _‘Not sorry to say, but I’ve been signed to keep_ your _glittery claws away from him, so it seems we have a conflict of interests. Besides, I’ve never had a taste of halfie power before and I’m kinda digging it. Watch me break it down, babe.’_

You feel a tug from your chest and up through your spine, like something leaving from your neck and being drawn into the hand on your shoulder. The crops around you brown and wither as a flow of clean energy leaves them to collect into the demon at your side. The crowd of townspeople notices this too and you hear the old priest in the back, the one possessed by the other demon, scream for someone to shoot.

You hear half of a gunshot before the sound distorts, growing faint like a long, drawn out echo, and even though the gun is pointed directly at him, you see no bullet wound. Instead, you can see the bright flash from the barrel of the shotgun, frozen as if paused in a movie. There’s a dark shape standing out against the frozen rays of light and you realize that it’s the bullet. Everything but you and the demon is still; even the crickets have stopped chirping.

The hand on your shoulder is gone and you find the demon suddenly in front of the gun, plucking the bullet from the air casually, a faint trail of sparks following the bullet as it’s moved, and he turns it around, setting it in front of the shooter’s forehead by a few inches. He continues to stand there, placing a pale-clawed hand on the shooter’s shoulder before everything starts again, as if it had never stopped. The gunshot finishes its bang, but there are screams of surprise and confusion as the shooter slumps beneath the demon's hand and the person behind them takes the same bullet to the face.

“No!” you scream, because these are people you know, people you’ve loved . . . and now they’re dying and you don’t want this. You never wanted this.

“Sorry, sweetcheeks,” says the new arrival, glancing over his shoulder at you despite the panicked screams from the people directly in front of him, and you can see how his eyes glow briefly brighter as a semi-visible energy flows from the shooter’s shoulder and up the demon’s arm. One person swings to grab for his neck but he’s suddenly _not there_ and back in front of you, tilting your chin up with a pointed claw to look you in the eyes. “My deal is to save you and keep you alive, and I’ve already fed from you so there’s no going back now.”

There’s another half-gunshot behind him that’s cut off mid-fire and he’s disappeared from his spot in front of you again to where the shot fired from.

“No! Please!” you call out, finding him again as he’s grabbing the bullet from the air, sparks of red energy trailing behind it as he turns to look at you from the side. “Please, they don’t know what they’re doing. Sh-she got them riled up . . . I just want to get out of here.” He stares at you, unblinking, and you’re worried that your words are falling to deaf ears, so you call out again, shouting in desperation, fear, and anger. “ _Please_ , I don’t want anybody to die! I just . . . want to live.”

Someone presses ‘play’ on time again and the gunshot echoes in the field, but no one’s hit, to your confusion and relief; the ground off to the side explodes in a small burst of mud and plant where he’s deflected the bullet. The crowd seems too terrified to fire again now that they actually noticed the two injured (one likely dead) people who took the first bullet, and they hesitate, a few in the back turning to run before they’re next.

“But they’re trying to kill you,” says the demon, in front of you again, his back to you as he watches the mob carefully. “I mean, if you wanna let them go, I can do that,” he offers casually, as if talking about plans for lunch instead of people’s _lives_ , “just thought it’d be easier to snuff out the problem before they try again.”

“No, just . . . let them go, please."  You feel deflated, exhausted even, more than you should after running for so short a time.  You just want this nightmare to end, not to stand here and make decisions about the lives of people trying to kill you.  "I just want to live. Can’t we just . . . get away while you stop things again?” You don’t understand how demon powers work, but from the looks of his, all you really need is to stop things long enough to get away, right?

“Ugh, keeping an area on pause like that while I _leave_ the range takes a lot more juice than just dealing with them now, but if that’s what you want . . .” He raises a white eyebrow to you over his shoulder.

“Yes! Please! Just do it!” you raise your voice to him, adrenaline pumping in your veins for fear of taking too long and things escalating should someone shoot at you or him again.

“If you say so, halfie,” he shrugs, turning back to you and placing both hands on your shoulders, leaning down to level you an even stare with glowing red eyes, “but this is gonna take a lot outta you.” He doesn’t give you time to respond, pulling you in and tilting your head to bite your neck harshly, causing you to cry out in pain.

 _‘Get your hands OFF OF HIM!!!’_ you hear the demon, not from behind the river of energy flowing around your mind, but through him, her harsh voice filtering over the calm precision and clicks of his mind as you feel yourself flowing away from your center of gravity and into him through his mouth against your neck. It burns briefly, but the flow of your own energy soon numbs the pain as you lose the ability to focus on yourself.

 _‘Make me,’_ you hear him challenge, voice floating loud and clear wrapped around your consciousness.

Behind him, you hear the priest order everyone to fire and then the clicks and beginning explosions of multiple shots, but something erupts from both you and the demon and everything goes quiet, and slowly, or maybe not so slowly, everything goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I normally avoid pre-notes, but I really would like to give a big thanks to everyone who's commented, kudo'd, and subscribed. It's been so long since I've tried chapter writing, and the support from you guys really gave me the motivation to try again and keep this going. Thank you very much! I'll keep doing my best.

You dream of home, the smell of chili simmering on the stovetop as on the TV screen, Brittany Murphy’s character is flipped off by a nine-year-old Dakota Fanning in Uptown Girls. Your mother, whose lap you’re resting on, gasps at such a gesture from a child, but a moment later, chuckles to herself anyways. It’s been colder than you’re used to for nearly a week and you stayed up late the night before to study for three exams today. You’re exhausted, but laying your head in your mother’s lap as dinner cooks, her gentle touch combing through your thick hair, you can’t say that it was a bad day – just a long one. You’re losing focus on the TV now, your vision growing blurry as your eyelids slide shut, and you focus your attention on the hand in your hair, warm touch sliding over the small horns that you hate so much.

The sound coming from the TV now is most definitely _not_ Uptown Girls, and the lap you’re lying against in no way smells like your mother. It’s difficult to pry your weary eyes open from sleep, but when you do, you find that you’re in a bed, a hotel bed from the looks of the plain bedspread and the large, out-dated TV sitting on the counter across from the bed and playing Comedy Central. You shift to push yourself up, feeling disoriented and confused, and the hand in your hair stills and pulls away from you, reminding you that, oh yeah, your head is in someone’s lap. Your reaction time is too slow to jump back like you want to do, so instead, you sort of end up swaying up and away clumsily, nearly falling against the wall where a headboard would be.

“Woah there, sleeping beauty,” the demon says, and suddenly everything comes rushing back to you – the phone call, the chase, the gunshots, the demon. Any remains of sleep have been swept away by a flood of last night’s memories and you curl into yourself against the wall, feeling suddenly vulnerable and helpless.

In the bliss of sleep, you had forgotten the troubles of the waking world, forgotten that your entire life had changed in the course of a few hours and that you now have no home to return to. You don’t know how your mother is doing, your friends have probably heard the news and likely hate your guts, and two people are most certainly dead because of you. You’re back to square one, but this time, you have memories of a life before, and that makes it so much harder. You want to curl back under the blankets and sleep. This _has_ to be a nightmare.

“Yeah I know,” he adds with a sigh, reminding you that you summoned a demon and that he’s still here. “Dreams are probably hell of a lot more desirable than this right now, _but_ ,” the mattress shifts as he gets up to pull the comforter away from you, “we gotta check out in two hours, so you kinda need to get up so we can get moving. Here.” You turn to look at him to see what he’s talking about, and you’re met with a face-full of clothing as he throws an outfit at you from your backpack on the floor. “Go shower.”

What? You have far too many questions to count right now and he wants you to go shower? For someone in a plane of reality that he shouldn’t be in, he’s awfully calm about this, and honestly, it unnerves you a little bit. This is your life, so shouldn’t you be the one calling the shots?

“What happened?” you ask, starting with the most obvious question. “The last thing I remember was being in the field and-“

“You conked out,” he interrupts without turning to look up as he rearranges your bag (guess you shouldn’t expect a demon to be polite), “I stopped the area, slashed some tires, GTA’d the least beat-up hick-mobile, and checked in here.”

“How did you-“

“Look, Karkat,” you’re growing aggravated with his interrupting (and how does he know your name?), “we’ll have time for Q and A on the road. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly comfortable staying in one place too long when an angry mob is after us.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly _comfortable_ blindly following directions from a demon when I don’t know where the fuck I am or how I got here, and especially when said demon’s already expressed interest in taking a bite of me,” you respond sharply, your aggravation showing as your volume rises above what was a sleepy mumble. “Oh wait, he already _has_.” You tilt your head back, the puncture wounds in your neck stinging as you stretch the healing skin and yank your shirt collar down to show off the literal bite he took earlier.

“I warned you, dawg,” is all he has to say to that, shrugging his shoulders and looking away, which only causes you to growl in frustration.

You have no more words for him right now without screaming, and in your situation, you really can’t afford to be shouting when you have no idea who your potential neighbors could be. You huff pointedly in his direction before pulling yourself off the bed, grabbing the clothes that he had thrown at your face to make your way to the tiny motel (or the shittiest hotel ever) bathroom, closing the flimsy door a bit harshly behind you.

Yeah, this is definitely a motel. Not even the crappiest hotels would have such an awful-looking, dull bathroom. You’re not exactly fond of the idea of standing barefoot in the dingy shower stall and inviting a nasty case of athlete’s foot, but the faint smell of bleach reassures you that the stall’s at least been cleaned since the last residents used it. You still turn the water up as hot as you can get it to scour the tiles while you undress and check yourself over in the worn mirror above the sink basin.

You’re an absolute mess, covered in dirt and grime with faint tear tracks showing through down your cheeks. You remind yourself a little of a stray cat, wide-eyed and feral, thick hair unruly and matted down where you fell in the field and where you’ve been sleeping on it. Bright red beads of blood wells up along the bite mark on your neck where you’ve stretched it open and you wonder how long that’s going to take to heal, and also whether or not you’re going to have to let him do that again. It was a dire situation, but even after sleeping for who-knows-how-long, you still feel drained down to your bones, an exhaustion that’s apparent in your reflection. It’s a little unreal to know that the boy in the mirror is you, but when you pull your hair back at your crown, yup, the same blood orange horns are still there; the scared boy in the mirror is definitely you. Joy.

“Yo,” the demon’s voice comes from the other side of the door, accompanying a knock. “I don’t know if a sauna is the best idea right now, seeing as you provided me with a meal and a half last night. I mean, I’m totes willing to break a door and save you from a self-induced heat spell, but how will I live with myself for tarnishing your maidenly honor?” His voice rises into cheesy southern-brand falsetto and you find yourself with the desire to punch his sharp-toothed grin in _through_ the cheap door.

“You fucking wish,” you growl, rattling the door with the side of your fist in the hopes of startling him away. “I just don’t want to catch whatever brain-eating bacteria that’s lodged itself in your skull long enough to make you spew _that_ crap. I’d rather pass out before catching your terminal stupidity.” You turn away from the door and the mirror that’s now fogging over with a huff to turn the hot water down, testing the temperature with the back of your hand.

“I’d ask if that’s normally how you thank people for saving your ass, but the memory bank comes up with a ‘no’. That’s harsh, Karkles.” He’s leaning against the door now, likely with his back to you as his voice is a bit fainter than a moment ago.

“Do I really have to thank you for a service I paid you for?” you ask as you step under the spray of warm water, feeling exponentially better just from the sensation of the first layer of dirt washing off of yourself.

“True, but you say thanks to your servers and cashiers.“ That’s not a question, but a statement, and a true one at that. Your mother would have your ear if she ever caught you not being polite to those in the service industry. You wonder what she would say about your behavior towards him right now . . . he is a demon after all. Knowing her, she’d probably still tell you to thank him for saving your life. That’s a pretty big deal after all.

She’s not here right now, though.

“How do you know all of this?” You’ve read up on demons after your body started changing in all the wrong ways, but it’s hard to find consistent information, so even though you have an idea, you still want to know from him. After all, you’re probably stuck with him for a while. The one thing that nearly every source has been consistent on tells you that you’ve made a deal with him, a hasty, undefined deal, but a deal with a demon might as well be a contract signed in blood.

“Memories,” he answers casually. “Contracted souls are connected. Memories from humans are normally faint, considering they’re going from a physical plane to an ethereal one, but sleep normally breaks down that wall and connects the two, and with you conked out on the drive over, it’s not like I had to put forth any effort to see them. That, and you being a halfie already between the planes just kinda threw ‘em in my face.”

“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” you quip sarcastically. Oh hey, the travel-shampoo from your bag is already on the shelf. You’d consider thanking him if you weren’t in the middle of a conversation about him reading your memories, something you’re not exactly cool with. “What made you think it was a good idea to go snooping through my mind?”

Okay, maybe you’re a little resentful. You consider yourself a private person, and after having to hide so much from your friends for so long, it feels weird to find that someone suddenly has access to your life at the tip of their fingers.

“I didn’t know how to drive a stick-shift.”

“O-oh.” You hadn’t considered that. Why would a demon know how to drive?

“Besides,” he adds after a pause, “it’s kinda hard to come up with the best plan of action if I don’t know the deets about you or the area, and I couldn’t exactly ask you after knocking you out like that. ‘Oh Mr. Vantas, whatever shall we do?’ ‘Snore.’ Yeah, no, kinda a necessity, ya dig?”

“How come I can’t see your memories then, if you’re , uh, not from this plane anyways?” It feels nice, making somewhat casual conversation as you rinse your hair, feeling better as the dirt and grime from the night before washes down the drain. His growing tendency to tangent is a little annoying, but it’s distracting you from thinking about other things at the moment, so you appreciate it.

“Oh? Sounds like someone’s a little jealous they can’t go brain-diving, too. Don’t worry, Karkles, I’ll give you all the insider info if you ask.” Okay, scratch that, he’s more than a little annoying. Where does he get off thinking he can butcher your name like that, anyways?

“Just answer the damned question if you’re going to keep flapping that waste bin you call a mouth.”

“What? Don’t like me talking? I could do other things with it if you wa-“ You cut him off with an irritated groan and he has the gall to laugh. You don’t know if you’re going to be able to mentally survive this ordeal.

“Alright alright, but the offer still stands, halfie.” His voice has taken on that hungry tone again, and you feel like there was something else implied along with his innuendo, but it makes you feel far too vulnerable to think about, so you don’t, focusing instead on his voice as it returns to a casual tone, (finally) answering your question.

“Technically someone could see a contracted demon’s memories, but we normally have at least a few decades to a few centuries of practice at keeping our mind-babble to ourselves. Young demons who can’t normally have a hard time crossing planes to contract anyways, which is probably for the best, considering that our memories don’t really mesh with human minds too well. Unless you’ve just got a will made of steel, it’s pretty hard to take in experiences from another, more exposed plane. There’s a reason most hallucinogens are illegal here. Shit opens you up for all kinds of ethereal experiences, and it can go real bad, real fast.”

“Guess I can live with that,” you concede as you turn off the water, shaking out your hair before stepping out of the stall to dry yourself off. You’re already far more involved with the other plane than you want to be, a fate you were born into against your will, so you see no reason in dragging yourself further into it with some demon’s memories.

“What’s your name, at least? I can have that, can’t I?” You’d rather not refer to him as ‘the demon’ for the rest of your ordeal, especially should you need to call out to him where others could hear you.

He’s gone quite. Huh?

“Hello?” You’d wonder if he vanished, but you can still see his shadow through the crack beneath the door. You’re not getting a particularly bad vibe at the moment, so you wonder what’s up.

“Dave,” he finally mutters. You wouldn’t have heard him, but you’re by the door now, pulling on the clothes that you had balanced carefully on the corner of the sink basin.

“A demon named Dave?” you ask skeptically. There’s no way.

Now fully clothed, towel thrown over your damp hair, you unlock the door, and he shifts away so that you can open it a moment later. You’re shocked to find that he now looks, well, normal. He’s looking away from you with almost-red amber eyes, sclera white now instead of black and half-shrouded by platinum-blonde instead of silver bangs. His skin is pale now too, instead of tinted red, but he’s tugged on one of your shirts beneath his red jacket so you can’t tell if those angular markings are still on his skin or not; likely not, seeing as his giant-ass horns are nowhere to be seen. You’re about to ask what _the hell_ just happened, when he answers your previous question, surprising you with his hurried tone.

“Look, being contracted in the Bible Belt, I’d rather go by Dave than David, so yeah, for Trivial Pursuit night, I’m a demon named David, but otherwise, just Dave works. Ironic, yeah, I know, but not enough to justify that weird religious feeling that comes with the bible-humping territory.”

Alright, you can understand that. It’s not like you _haven’t_ spent the past four years feeling out of place during the morning prayer over the loud speakers at school. ‘Don’t mind me, just a kid with horns and sharp teeth bowing his head and trying really hard not to think about how potentially dangerous the religious half of this community is to his safety.’

But you have more important inquiries at the moment for your human-looking demon companion.

“How the actual fuck did you accomplish that?” He looks up to you, a pale eyebrow raised to ask for clarification, and you gesture towards his appearance, tilting your head down and shifting your hair to point out your own horns.

“Oh? This?” He runs his fingers through his bangs before flipping them out of his eyes with a flick of his head and you are _not_ going to think about how smoothly he accomplished that. Nope, not happening, shut up brain. “How else do you think I booked this room? We’re not all blessed with your adorable hideaway nubs, ya know.” He reaches out to ruffle your hair, but you yank away from him with a glare. You don’t let people touch your head, for obvious reasons.

“Woah, chill bro. Didn’t mean anything by it,” he shrugs, turning to head back into the main part of the room. “But yeah, if I’ve got a food source, I can suppress all the glory that is me and protect little old ladies from heart attacks. I mean, not everyone can handle these good looks without losing themselves.” Oh god, he’s rambling again. You’re starting to realize that this is a common thing for him.

You’re about to tell him at least twenty reasons why he’s deluded and needs to get his head checked, when your empty stomach performs an impressive triple back flip inside of you and you feel a sudden pang of anxiety seeping into your mind.

“I mean, I’m surprised you lasted so long before fainting, considering you’re a blushing vir-“

“We need to go _now_.” You interrupt him, completely ignoring his stupid, self-aggrandizing tangent as you hurry back into the bathroom to gather your things.

“Not even gonna brush your teeth? I can’t be bothering you _that_ bad, can I?”

Dave’s smirking when you come back out of the bathroom, grabbing your toothbrush and toothpaste on the counter on your way out. He’s about to say something else when you look up to him with a harsh warning, because you have absolutely zero time for bullshit right now; you need to _go_. He seems to get the message.

“Oh shit, you’re serious aren’t you? I didn’t think they’d-“ His words dissolve to murmuring to himself as he helps you gather your things into your backpack and follows you out of the door.

“Here, it’s the old Ford across the parking lot. Get it started and pull around to the front while I check us out,” he instructs you, tilting his head towards a white truck that you recognize from town. He palms off the keys into your hand before locking the motel door and turning to head towards the front office.

The feeling of dread is fading once Dave is back in the truck and telling you which direction to pull out of the motel from. Apparently he had the foresight to get gas the night before, and as the two of you leave the small village, you’re feeling a little less apprehensive over making a deal with a demon, though, you know you’ll need to discuss that later. For now, you’re just relieved that he’s taking you so seriously and helping you survive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the lack of forward-motion in this chapter. There was going to be more plot-direction-wise, but the first half ended up being much longer than I thought and ended up having a focus all its own so I decided to separate the two halves and proof/post the first. I'm a bit behind on schoolwork right now so it'll be a bit before the next part, but I at least have a good plan of where I'll be taking it.
> 
> Once again, thank you to everyone who's shown support. I'm enjoying the chapter-writing experience so far and I can't wait to put my plot plans into words to share!
> 
> (Also, this was proofed shortly after finishing, so if I've missed anything, please let me know!)


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